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After attending St Oswalds Ellesmere College in Shropshire, where he studied Mathematics and Physics, he emigrated to Canada.

In 1981 he managed the Orient Express night club, a venue in Burlington, Ontario where many world class rock acts performed including Rick Derringer, Steppenwolf, Joe Perry and Mountain. In 1983 Godwin turned to music management and assisted in the recording and production of albums by Michael White & The White. In 1987 he started the process to establish his own record label Griffin Music and his own book publishing company, Collector's Guide Publishing. In 1990 the first album by Michael White was released on Griffin Music. Over the next few years Griffin would release many classic rock acts' back-catalogs through Griffin, notably, the BBC In Concert series, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, Motörhead, Thin Lizzy, Mike Oldfield, Olivia Newton-John, Hawkwind, and Nazareth.

In 1984 Godwin wrote The Illustrated Led Zeppelin Collection a book for Led Zeppelin collectors. Books he authored between 1987 and 2007 include The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Led Zeppelin, The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Hawkwind, The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kate Bush, Apollo 11 The First Men on the Moon, Project Apollo The Test Program, Project Apollo Exploring the Moon, Mars, The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook, Russian Spacecraft, Space Shuttle Fact Archive and The Making of Led Zeppelin IV. In 2005 Godwin co-authored Saturn with Alan Lawrie. The book won the Sir Arthur Clarke Award for Best Presentation Written in 2006.

Between 1987 and 1998 Collector's Guide Publishing released books on many different rock artists including Elvis Presley, Kate Bush, Wishbone Ash and Kiss.

In 1998, at the invitation of astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Godwin would begin his imprint Apogee Books.

Between 1998 and 2007 Apogee Books published almost 100 book titles about space flight with contributions from Buzz Aldrin, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, David R. Scott, Harrison Schmitt and Wernher von Braun.

Editing

Godwin has edited dozens of books including the NASA Mission Reports series (25 titles as of 2007), Dyna-Soar HyperSonic Strategic Weapons System, Rocket & Space Corporation Energia, The Conquest of Space, Columbia Accident Investigation Report as well as a series of vintage science fiction books in 2006 under the Apogee Science Fiction imprint. Titles with forewords by Godwin and editorial content include Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars and A Columbus of Space, Hugo Gernsback's The Scientific Adventures of Baron Munchhausen, and George Griffith's The World Peril of 1910.

For his 1999 book Apollo 11 The NASA Mission Reports he created the first ever seamless QTVR digital panoramas of the Apollo lunar surface photography(1999)as well as the first commercial release of the digitized footage of the Apollo 11 moonwalk broadcast, both on an accompanying CDROM. He also produced and directed the 2002 direct-to-DVD Apollo 11 - Moonwalk which featured the first ever time-synchronized multiple-camera-angle movie of the first moonwalk and moon landing. The DVD first appeared in the book Apollo 11 - The NASA Mission Reports Volume 3. (2002). Godwin has consulted on the Discovery Channel TV series Rocket Science and in 2007 Mars Rising. He also consulted on the Led Zeppelin episode of VH-1 Legends television show.

In 2007 the International Astronomical Union's Committee for Small Body Nomenclature approved the naming of a main belt asteroid after Robert and his brother Richard Godwin for their efforts in documenting space history and raising public awareness about Near Earth Objects. "4252 Godwin" is an absolute magnitude 12.7 minor planet discovered in 1985 by H. Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory.

In 2008 Robert was appointed as Space Curator at the Canadian Air and Space Museum.